SHC stays eviction of Moon Garden residents

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has stayed the eviction of Moon Garden residents, bringing sigh of relief to hundreds of families protesting outside the apartment for last 36 hours, ARY News reported.

The court has ordered police not to force residents of Moon Garden to vacate their abodes.

The hearing was postponed till November 18. The court will take up the matter again in the next hearing.

The residents thanked media for raising their issue and supporting them in the right cause.

Earlier, the residents had blocked the road outside the apartment and staged sit-in to resist police from evicting them. Protesters comprising learned women, children and elderly persons asked how could the vacate their flats they had been living in for 15 years.

The dwellers took to the streets and remained there since Wednesday night to protest the court orders. They questioned why the builder was spared from action – if residential plaza was indeed illegal – when he was leasing out flats to buyers.

Locals said the parents neither sent their children to schools nor they themselves went to office, mainly because of the trauma they are currently undergoing in the wake of eviction.

The Railways Employees Cooperative Society had filed a petition against the illegal construction of the multi-storey building on its land, prompting the court to issue orders for vacating the building.

A division bench headed by Justice Sajjad Ali Shah directed the three utilities – K-Electric, Sui Southern Gas Company Limited and Karachi Water and Sewerage Board – and other civil agencies to disconnect the amenities to the project. The court further ordered that and if the occupants luggage be taken out from the flats by allowing them to remove it without any inventory – in case they refuse comply with court directions.

The team of K-Electric had also reached the building to cut off power yesterday. However, residents put up strong resistance and blocked route leading to their apartment.

Sindh Local Government Minister Nasir Hussain Shah had also visited the families and assured them of cooperation from the Sindh government. He had earlier claimed that the land where Moon Garden building is located, belongs to the provincial government.

He has also offered the dwellers for legal assistance in the case. Similarly leaders of different political parties also visited the aggrieved families and expressed their support.

The residents are still in a fix about fate of their abode.

Moon Garden dwellers had filed a petition against eviction, but it was turned down by the SHC.

On September 29 the court had asked Sindh’s inspector general of police and Karachi’s additional inspector general to attach the building after getting it vacated within 30 days and submit a report.

IGP Ghulam Hyder Jamali, who was issued with a show-cause notice at the last hearing for not getting the building vacated, submitted an affidavit and mentioned that the additional inspector general of the province and the DIG East had been tasked with to complying with the court orders.

The court was further told that 100 families were inducted into the building and that the families were given allotment by the owner of the project for settlement.